The News Cycle for Friday, Feb. 10, 2012

Motorists should be dinged $150 for parking on busy streets in rush hour, or blocking a bicycle lane any time, city council decided. The city must now seek court approval before it can increase the fine from the current $60 for parking during rush hour — 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday.

Included as part the Mayor’s Bike Plan , the Trails Plan aims to improve existing multi-use trails across the city as well as add 100 km of new off-road trails. About 30 km of new off-road multi-use trails are close to completion. These trails were approved in 2009, prior to the current mayor’s election, and are funded as part of the Recreational Infrastructure Canada Program in Ontario (RInC). These trails include the Finch Hydro Corridor and CN Leaside trails (for a full list of RInC projects in Toronto see here ).

“Betty & Dash” sounds more like a Saturday morning cartoon than a bike club, but maybe that’s appropriate. Founders Stephanie Fox and Esther MacKenzie envisioned a non-intimidating group that wouldn’t take itself too seriously, and naming it after their own bikes was just the start. The club now lends bikes and tools to students, free of charge.

I wasn’t riding a bike just to ride a bike. I was doing it to enter the Church of the Wheel, where supplicants are a happy lot, if you believe the catechists. The happiest cities all have a high number of cyclists, John Helliwell, a renowned happiness expert and economist at University of British Columbia, explained to me.

While traffic fatalities overall have declined, according to Toronto Police, data acquired by The Globe and Mail show cycling collisions have remained stubbornly consistent for the past decade. The number of reported collisions in 2010 was nearly identical in 2000. Since 1986, only one year has passed without a bicyclist fatality.